1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to cloud computing.
2. Description of the Related Art
A variety of cloud services such as an online storage is provided on the Internet. In connection with the widespread use of mobile information devices (hereinafter referred to as mobile terminals) such as a tablet PC and a smartphone, the convenience of the cloud services is improved. In recent years, more companies have used such cloud services for business.
Some users use cloud services selectively. For example, a user has accounts for a plurality of online storages. The user uses some of the online storages for documents and the other for photos depending on the type and attribute of data to be saved. The user sometimes uses an online storage and a service of providing software to create and edit a document.
Meanwhile, there has been disclosed a network storage system provided with a plurality of file systems. In a network storage system where a plurality of file systems is provided virtually as a single file system to make file access possible, a switch apparatus for periodically surveying the amount of use of storage resources in the file system is provided, and the use of storage resources in file systems is limited in an integrated manner (Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2006-092322).
According to conventional technologies, a user who uses different cloud services is required to gain access to each cloud server separately. Therefore, in using each cloud service, the user needs to use account IDs and passwords selectively. For the use of a charge-per-use cloud service, when the user would like to know the current usage fee (charge) of each cloud server, he/she is required to gain access to each cloud server separately. As the user uses more cloud services, so the user's workload increases in order to use the cloud services selectively.